


Thomas Versus the Nanny

by Alex51324



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Spoilers for 4x01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 09:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex51324/pseuds/Alex51324
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little missing scene involving Thomas, little Sybil, and Nanny West, from 4x01.  May eventually become part of the next season of the Thomas Barrow Show, but stands on its own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thomas Versus the Nanny

Thomas was checking on the flower arrangements on the gallery, wondering if he ought to tell the gardeners that they needed to replace them more often, when he felt a tug at the tails of his coat. Looking down, he saw Miss Sybil, dressed in a somewhat grubby pinafore and clutching a small book in her free hand. 

“What are you doing out here?” he asked her, bending to disentangle her fingers from his tails. He wondered if he ought to pick her up, but she seemed a bit grubby overall, and he didn’t want to spoil his livery. 

“Gah,” she said, pressing the book into his hands. 

“What do you have there?” he asked, trying to get a look at it without touching it. It looked sticky. “ _The Tale of Peter Rabbit_. Very nice. Why don’t you ask Nanny to read it to you?”

“Guh,” she said, thrusting it at him again. 

He looked up and down the gallery, hoping to see Nanny, or at least one of the child’s female relatives. No such luck. “Fine.” The book was, as he’d feared, sticky. He opened the cover, noting as he did that it was inscribed inside the front flap, “To Sybbie, with love from Auntie Edith.” A few more pages brought him to the story. “‘Once upon a time, there were four little rabbits, and their names were—Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.’ That last one doesn’t really seem to go with the others, does it? Oh well. ‘They lived with their—” Thomas made a hasty edit “—Father in a sand-bank underneath the root of a very big fir-tree.’” Thomas turned the page and observed that his changing the mother rabbit to a father hadn’t helped at all, because the next bit was about the father getting turned into a pie. Had Lady Edith _read_ this book before handing it off to little Sybbie? It didn’t seem at all suitable. “And then I suppose they had an adventure of some sort. The end.” He closed the book and handed it back.

Fortunately, the little girl appeared to fall for it. She took the book back and jammed one corner into her mouth. 

“You’re meant to be in the nursery,” Thomas pointed out. 

Miss Sybil was unimpressed. 

“It’s that way,” he added, pointing. 

Sybil followed the gesture with her eyes and kept chewing the book. “All right.” Shaking his head, he took her hand and led her down to the nursery, where the fat Nanny was in front of the fire with Master George in her lap, feeding him from a lidded cup. “You’ve had an escapee,” he informed her. 

“Sybil, you naughty girl!” the Nanny exclaimed, putting the cup down and shifting Master George into a one-armed grip, heaving herself up out of the chair, and coming over. “And spoiling Master George’s book!” She took the book from Sybil, whose lower lip began to wobble. “Don’t give me any of that. To the corner with you.”

Something about that didn’t seem entirely right to Thomas. True, Miss Sybil oughtn’t to have wandered off, but it was Nanny’s job to watch her. “It’s hers,” Thomas pointed out. 

“What?”

“The book. It says so inside. Lady Edith gave it to her.”

“I don’t see what concern that is of yours.”

“You said it was Master George’s, and it isn’t.” It wasn’t nice to tell lies to children.

“Haven’t you work of your own?” the Nanny demanded. Changing the subject—the sure sign of the outmatched.

“I have, but I could hardly leave Miss Sybil on her own until you noticed she was missing, could I?”

With that parting shot, Thomas withdrew. There was no doubt in his mind now—Nanny West had to go.


End file.
